Product Development and Realization - Section 4.3.1 edition 6

Would anybody be willing to share their procedure or how they handle section 2.3.1ed7 Product Development and Realization (4.3.1 ed6). Specifically looking for food packaging manufactures. We passed are initial audit last year with what we had, but it was obvious that the auditor did not really like what he was looking at or hearing. We need to put together something better, but don't have much of an idea on how this should look. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Jason K.

I don't have a procedure, but if you are talking about the realisation of new customer products then you need to:

1. Gather all of your customers requirements in a standard way - what is their product, process, functionality, shelf life, what do they need from the product, quality requirements/testing, packaging delivery, specifications, legal requirements, information etc.

2. Review the requirements with the internal process team and work to meet and agree the customers requirements or review changes / compromises with the customer

3. Make the product

4. Check that you met all of the requirements and if not make changes / learn for next time

It's just PDCA - Plan Do Check Act. Following a disciplined procedure helps to get things right first time for the customer and invariably makes the business more efficient. Introducing such a procedure is murder as sales and all will argue they don't have the time, but remember you have the standard on your side, so just hit them over the head with it repeatedly until they break.

Ideally the documentation would be a from to capture customers requirements and a project checklist to ensure you cover all bases as you work through the project and perhaps a little flowchart providing an overview of how the system works.

Regards,
Simon

Just in the process of updating to edition 7. Ours is a slaughter and processing facility. Their are references to Canadian CFIA FSEP program.

Simon-

Thanks, this information does help give me a little direction, I'm still not exactly sure how to best handle stock products and existing items that are not really new, but may be sold to a new customer. We sell to a very diverse group of customers that range and several would not have much of a clue regarding some of the requirements you list and we would more than likely confuse and frustrate them if they had to answer 20 question before they could buy a case of small trays to put muffins in to sell at their bakery shop. We sometimes sell to large distributors that sell to thousands of people and we have no clue or method to get the end use information. SQF has no clause anywhere that I can find that offers any information on how to handle these types of scenarios. SQF also does not do a very good job of grandfathering anything. For us to go back and complete this type of an exercise with a customer we have been selling a product to for 5+ years would be very difficult and hard to explain. If we have had no major complaints or issues, it seems to me that it is pretty obvious we are selling them the product that meets their needs.

Thanks Again-

I don't have a procedure, but if you are talking about the realisation of new customer products then you need to:

1. Gather all of your customers requirements in a standard way - what is their product, process, functionality, shelf life, what do they need from the product, quality requirements/testing, packaging delivery, specifications, legal requirements, information etc.

2. Review the requirements with the internal process team and work to meet and agree the customers requirements or review changes / compromises with the customer

3. Make the product

4. Check that you met all of the requirements and if not make changes / learn for next time

It's just PDCA - Plan Do Check Act. Following a disciplined procedure helps to get things right first time for the customer and invariably makes the business more efficient. Introducing such a procedure is murder as sales and all will argue they don't have the time, but remember you have the standard on your side, so just hit them over the head with it repeatedly until they break.

Ideally the documentation would be a from to capture customers requirements and a project checklist to ensure you cover all bases as you work through the project and perhaps a little flowchart providing an overview of how the system works.

Regards,
Simon

Dear jik,

You might (perhaps) get some further responses if you posted some details as to yr current SQF response.

I expect you know there is a separate ("answers") Guide for food sqf2000. Nothing regarding packaging applications ?

I am guessing this section is basically borrowed from iso 9001 et al

Rgds / Charles.C